Wonder Woman: The Return of Kane
by marat
Chapter Five
Almost insensate in the darkness that crushed in around her, Wonder Woman only felt the damp tiled floor beneath her knees and the pressure at her chained wrists that were suspended over her head. Her head was spinning. The pain and stimulation of something left inside her prevented the dazed heroine from focusing on her situation.
She groaned in the face of the agony that had become her attendant.
Kane ran down the hall, gasping for breath. For more than an hour, he had been pushing his out-of-shape body, wending his way through the labyrinthine halls of the underground complex, checking room after room, some of them more than once, looking for a young blonde woman. He never stopped to ask himself why he was doing it.
As he turned the corner and gazed down the corridor that looked like every other hallway in this place, he couldn’t tell whether he had traveled this way before or not. Then, without warning, a set of double doors located about fifteen yards away swung open and two huge men, laughing and patting one another on the back, walked quickly away from him. He recognised them immediately: Valdez and Jonas. Jonas dabbed his nose with a bloody handkerchief.
Kane sprinted the last length of hallway, standing before the still-swinging doors and peering through the glass at the darkened interior of the women’s locker room. Cautiously, fearfully, he reached out his right hand and slowly pushed open one of the doors. Kane tried to peer into the blackness. Even the bright light from the hallway didn’t illuminate much more than the semicircle of the tiled floor that lay in front of him. Holding the door open he stood behind the other, closed, door, peeked his head around the edge, and listened.
Finally, he asked softly, ‘Audra?’
Inside the locker room, all was pitch black. The narrow wedge of light that spread outward from the open door showed nothing other than two fixed wooden benches near the entrance.
‘Audra? Are you here?’
Kane reached his hand inside the locker room, brushing up and down the wall next to the doorway, looking for the light switch. For what seemed an interminable period, all he felt was the smooth painted surface. Finally, however, the plastic cover met his searching fingers. He flicked the switch upward and brilliant neon light flooded the room.
Wonder Woman was near the far wall, close to the entrance to the carpeted dressing area that led to the showers. When the lights came on, Kane saw her twist her head downward, as if her eyes had been physically struck by the bright lights.
She was on her knees. Her arms were stretched over her head, the links of chain joining her wrists tied to a makeshift rope that connected to pipes that ran across the ceiling. Her athletic body leaned forward, and the heroic Amazon had buried her face in the crook of her arms. Her magnificent body had been used by the two men who had just left. Her satin bustier had been pulled from her body and lay crumpled on the floor next to her. Its dramatic red and gold satin reflected the light vividly. He saw her blue and white-starred tights in the corner behind her. The only part of her uniform that remained on her body was the golden girdle of Hippolyte that had settled low on her hips. Her exposed hips and thighs seemed to be covered with scaly, dried cum. The sweat that covered the rest of her body made it glisten in the overhead lights.
She slid off of her knees to a position resting on the side of her right thigh and hip. As she did so, her arms were pulled upward, revealing her beaten expression. Kane saw that her raven-black hair hung askew, dangling in long, perspiration-soaked strands across her stunning face and that her eyes were almost closed. Glossy lines marking where the streams of tears had run down her cheeks were evidence of her torture. A spool of saliva drooled from her mouth spiraling downward toward the floor. As soon as she saw him, she turned her face from him, staring at the ground, hoping to avoid his glance. The light glinted off her golden tiara, highlighting the single red star in the center. Its brilliance mocked the heroine who wore it.
As Kane drew closer, he noticed the scuffs and small tears in the leather of her red boots.
‘Diana—er, uh, Wonder Woman!’ he said in a harsh whisper. He wanted to ask her about Audra’s whereabouts. Did she even know who Audra was? He had seen Liddy’s henchmen leave, but they didn’t have the blonde with them. Would Wonder Woman know anything about Audra?
As Kane looked down on the Princess of the Amazons, he saw the pain in her face. Suddenly, he realised that before there could be any attempt to find Audra, and perhaps effect a rescue, this woman would need to be unfettered, both physically and mentally.
The helpless and humiliated Champion of All Women turned away from him. Her nakedness and her sexual debasement—the second such degradation in so short a time—made the heroine seek a safe haven, any refuge, any corner where she could hide from witnesses to her shame.
Kane removed his jacket and wrapped it around the debased, violated woman.
She took a large gulp of air as she tried to say something. All that came out of a shudder and a short groan. She shifted her weight again, and then whispered, barely audibly, ‘Pl—please….’ She took another gulp of air. As she squeezed her eyes shut, she moaned quietly, ‘In-… side… inside me.’
Gently and ever so slowly, Kane helped Wonder Woman shift her position so that she sat uncomfortably on the tile floor. He carefully reached down between her thighs and up toward her vagina, where he himself had only recently had had his dreams fulfilled. Protruding barely a half-an-inch from that Elysium was the hard ivory of a massive dildo. Soaked with her fluids, its surface slipped twice from his fingers as he tried to grab it. In frustration he tried a third time, and the clumsy scholar only succeeded in pushing it infinitesimally deeper into the heroine. He heard pain in her intake of breath, but the helpless, exhausted woman could no longer scream.
He tried again. This time he only succeeded in twisting the ivory a few degrees. Despite the agony she felt from other parts of her body, the combination of pain and ecstasy showed as she stiffened her spine and raised her eyes to the ceiling. Trying once again, this time Kane felt it begin to ease from her sex. Bit by significant bit, he relieved the avenger. He saw the lines on her face smooth out to reveal the pristine loveliness that he knew so well. With each little bit of the sex toy that emerged from within her, she sighed, he thought, gratefully.
It took long minutes, but eventually the fourteen-inch object was removed. Kane looked at it in disgust, a disgust he felt for himself. The white object was thickly coated with the superheroine’s honey, and as its sweet odor filled his nostrils, he came near to retching. He harkened back to his own rape of this woman mere days ago, and the smell revived the sense of triumph he had experienced then, a triumph now polluted by what he had facilitated: The drug he had used to defeat Wonder Woman had allowed brutes to destroy her. He violently threw the ivory phallus against the farthest wall of the room.
He gently lifted the unsteady Champion to her feet, at the same time pulling his jacket over her chest. Now standing, her chained wrists were suspended in front of her. Kane reached for the improvised cords that secured her to the ceiling. He pulled at them, several times, failing to release them, and her. Finally, frustration showed in his face and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a narrow key. He inserted it into one of the metal loops that circled the Amazon’s wrist. It opened easily and her right arm dropped to her side.
Wonder Woman felt her Amazon strength return to her, but her relief at the resurgence of her power was tempered by the humiliation she had suffered. Kane quickly released her other wrist, returned the key to his pocket, and then led the shaking woman to a nearby bench, where he helped her to take a seat. Then he gathered up the crushed red-and-gold satin breastplate and the blue and white-starred tights from the floor. As if approaching an alter with an offering to a goddess, he brought Wonder Woman’s uniform to her. As he looked over her abused body, Kane only noticed something now.
There was no blood.
He sat next to the hunched-over Champion, still holding the artifacts of her heroism. From far back in his throat, he said very softly, ‘It’s my fault, Diana. What happened to you… it’s all my fault.’
She didn’t seem to hear him. Having made his attempt at confession, for a moment he thought better of it. Then he repeated his declaration of guilt. ‘It’s all my fault, Diana. I’m sorry.’
Her returning strength allowed Wonder Woman to note what was being said. ‘What… what do you mean?’
‘I… I…’ Kane stammered. He really wanted to tell the truth. His whole body sagged as he wrestled with his dilemma. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the only way to find Audra. It’s the only thing I can do.
Finally, he said quietly, ‘Let’s get you cleaned up. Then, I’ll tell you everything.’
When Wonder Woman emerged from the shower, she bore herself with an attitude much more befitting a superheroine. As she dressed, even her torn bustier and boots seemed to only add luster to the glory of her beauty and dignity. Now, restored, she was truly the Champion of All Women.
Kane led her out of the locker room. This room had been the scene of an emotional rollercoaster for the Amazon Princess in the last few hours. First she had fulfilled herself with the ecstasy and the purity of her lovemaking with Audra, where both women had experienced a sensual completeness and union. It was a bond between the two women which no male would understand or comprehend. But it had been followed—and sullied—by the devastating rape carried out by Valdez and Jonas, an attack that was as incomprehensible to the heroine as the psychic and sexual union would have been to any man. How had they defeated her again? She was prepared for them; she was capable of defending herself. An Amazon’s physiology gave her great strength, even when chained. The earlier defeat had been washed away, and her lifespirit had been restored. Yet, when she tried to attack, weakness overwhelmed her, a weakness that allowed the two men to humble her again.
Kane stood slouched over in the corner near the double doors. He stared at the tile floor, only occasionally raising his eyes to glance at the Amazon. Now freed from her manacles, Wonder Woman walked toward him, an inquiring look in her eyes.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
They walked a short distance to the ‘T’ where the hallway ran into a cross-corridor. Turning left, he led the Princess about fifty yards to a centrally located office. On the door was a plate: G.G. Liddy. He turned to her. ‘In here.’
But he didn’t move. Wonder Woman reached out her hand and tried to the knob. The door was locked. When she looked at the aspiring academic, he nodded toward the door, a heartfelt sadness showing in his eyes. She twisted the doorknob easily, breaking the lock and opening the door. It swung open revealing a spartan office. Kane reached inside and flicked on the light switch next to the entry. A desk and chair, a small counter, and a padded chair were all the furnishings to be seen. Only a framed photograph of a smiling Liddy with an also-smiling Richard Nixon decorated the walls.
Kane walked behind the desk. He gestured for Wonder Woman to seat herself in the cushioned chair. He passed her a file. Wonder Woman noticed the name on the tab: ‘C.F. Kane’.
She opened the half-inch-thick file and quickly absorbed the information it offered. As she finished, her shoulders had visibly drooped and her head hung a little lower. Her worst fears had been realised.
While in prison, Kane had had conversations with his cellmate, as often happened, about the circumstances of his capture and arrest. That man, a white-collar felon with contacts in the CIA, got word to some friends. They in turn had contacted Kane about possible employment after his now-pending release.
Kane had been met at the gate to the State Prison by a representative of the President of the United States. (How his head must have swelled and spun at the same time, Wonder Woman imagined.) He was taken to Washington, and the record of the interrogation that followed was recorded verbatim, as if transcribed from an audiotape. The professional investigators who debriefed Kane soon came to the conclusion that hypnotism would restore a fuller and more accurate record of what had happened months earlier in Newark.
The deep hypnotism had worked. Kane had recalled all of the information he had been ordered to forget under the power of the magic lasso. He had given the White House Security Team, for this is what the organisation that now employed him is called, all of the material he had gathered on the Amazing Amazon for that now-discarded dissertation. All of it.
They knew about Amazon society on Paradise Island. They knew her secret identity. They knew the extent of her powers and her strength. They knew all of the details of her weaknesses. They also knew what had happened to her in Kane’s hands, the things she had only known because she had seen the films made at the time. As Wonder Woman handed the file back to Kane, her hand shook and she felt a small dizziness pass over her. How would she overcomethis?
Through all of this Kane had said nothing. For a brief moment, their eyes met across Liddy’s desk. Then, Kane dropped his glance, unable to maintain contact. He spoke very softly. ‘We knew that your strength was taken from you when you are chained by a man. The President wanted you out of the way, so we figured that the easiest way would be a trap. You fell right into it the other night.
‘I remembered how susceptible you are to drugs. Without them we couldn’t have defeated you in Delaware. Well, I decided what I wanted to do to you. I wanted to use your strengths against you. So, I decided that a drug that would take away your strength when adrenaline is poured into your bloodstream would be exactly right.
‘Of course, there was no drug that acted that way. So, when the Government can’t get the exact drug it needs, it can arrange to have it made. I simply gave the government chemists the specifications, and they gave me the drug.’
‘You drugged me?’
‘Much more than that.’ Here he stopped. Wonder Woman saw tears brimming in his eyes. ‘I… I didn’t…’ He stopped again.
‘I wanted to punish you for what you had done to me, for what you had stolen from me in Newark. I could have been a professor somewhere… I could…’ Wonder Woman didn’t move as he lurched in his seat, covering his face with his hands. His shoulders shook as self-pity overwhelmed the smallish man. It made him seem smaller.
‘I’m a good teacher, Diana. I know my subject, and I can get students interested. There are lots of areas in the Classics where research can be done. That’s why they’re called the Classics: They’re relevant even today. I could have contributed something to scholarship. Oh, I know I’m no Joseph Campbell, but I could have made some contribution.
‘Anyway, they came up with a drug called Ludovicalamene. I injected it into you while you were unconscious right after you were captured. That’s why, when I…’ he paused for a long time, ‘…raped… you… you weren’t able to stop me. When you determined to resist, and your body fired up its defenses, you were weakened, not strengthened. Even I could handle you alone.’
Wonder Woman looked at Kane with disgust.
‘I’m so sorry. I was just so angry at you. I thought you had destroyed my life, my future, everything I ever wanted to be.’
The beautiful Princess of the Amazons simply stared at him.
Kane tried to change the subject. ‘That’s why you couldn’t fight Liddy’s men. Your body naturally produces adrenaline when threatened. You prepare for fight or flight. Anyway, the drug was—is—still in your system. It will be for another 48 hours.’
‘You did this to me. You took away my ability to defend myself. You raped me and then you helped others do so. How could you? You, an educated man?’
‘I told you. I was furious with you. This was the only way I knew to get even with you.’
‘Men are like that. When confronted with a woman who challenges them on their own terms, they react with violence and seek to dominate her in the only way they can. When you’re apologising to me, you should do so for your gender.’
This time it was the scholar who was speechless.
‘In Newark, I said that you were amoral, that you were like the scientists and doctors who performed scientific experiments in the Nazi camps. It seems that, for all the knowledge you profess and all the knowledge you have gained, you haven’t learned anything about Right and Wrong. You claim to have something to offer in the Classics. Evidently, you haven’t studied Ethics or Morals.’
Kane felt a coldness enter the pit of his stomach. He knew that the superheroine was right. But he also had to get her to save Audra from Liddy. She was the only one who could. He despaired of that possibility. She certainly didn’t owe him a thing.
Wonder Woman continued to berate Kane. ‘While you’re studying the “Classics”, why don’t you see whether there’s something in there about Man’s inhumanity to Man. And even more specifically, his inhumanity to Woman. Look at what Hercules did to Hippolyte, the Queen of the Amazons, after he’s defeated her. Or how Zeus behaved. Or Narcissus. The mythology is filled with stories of Men who mistreat, discount, and rape women. Do you think there might be a lesson there? A lesson that’s relevant for today? “That’s why they’re called the Classics.”’
‘Wonder Woman, please stop.’
‘Why should I do anything you ask?’
Kane now told the beautiful Princess everything he had discovered about Liddy’s grotesque plan: About how government scientists had extracted Hitler’s DNA and how he had planned to introduce an embryo into the Amazon to carry it for him; about Audra’s kidnapping and her improvised role in the project. Wonder Woman sat, slumped, in the chair by the time he finished. The possibility of stopping Liddy seemed bleak.
‘I think I know where he’s taken Audra,’ Kane was saying. ‘There’s an old CIA safe house across the river in Maryland. They don’t use it much any more and Liddy often talks about turning it into a personal retreat.
‘Please, Diana.’ Wonder Woman shuddered when he called her that. ‘Please, Diana. You’re the only one who can rescue her. I don’t know whether you got to know her at all, but she means more to me than everything I ever may have. Please save her. After that, you can do what you want to me.’ He rose from his seat and removed the framed photo of the President and his boss from the wall. Behind it was a small safe. He looked at the heroine with beseeching eyes.
The beautiful Amazon Princess rose and walked to his side. ‘Do you want me to break into this, too?’
‘Your magic lasso is in there.’
Wonder Woman grabbed the dial and was on the verge of tearing it from the face of the safe. Suddenly, Kane’s face lit up with an inspiration. ‘Wait! Try 20-4-89.’
The Amazon’s deft fingers quickly twirled the combination. The door swung open. ‘That combination probably opened half the safes in Nazi Germany. And 30-1-33 opened the other half,’ Kane said smugly. When Wonder Woman looked at him, the smile disappeared from his face.
Reattaching her golden lasso to her belt, Wonder Woman seemed complete again. Even the tears in her bustier and boots seemed to vanish.
Kane had given the Amazon the location of the small estate that he believed housed Liddy’s operation. He paused dramatically and looked steadily into her flawless features. ‘To avoid the effects of the Ludovicalamene, you must avoid excitement, anger, fear, anything that would lead to the production of adrenaline.’
‘You make it sound easy. You know that an Amazon’s physiology is heightened compared to normal men. One of the sources of our power is the strength we gain from the way our systems react to stimuli.’
‘I also know of your Zen-like ability to master your emotions, to keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you.’
‘Spare me the Kipling. It won’t be easy and you know it. How do I know this isn’t just another trap?’
‘You have only my word. And, despite all I’ve done to you, and attempted to do to you, have I ever lied to you?’
Wonder Woman decided to change the subject. ‘You said the President wanted me out of the way?’
‘That’s what I was told.’ Kane was grateful for the new direction. ‘You were a threat to some plans he’s evidently had drawn up.’
As Wonder Woman exited the room into the brightly lit hallway, she said, ‘I know of these plans.’
It was late afternoon. Wonder Woman had been confined to the subterranean chambers beneath the White House for so long that she had lost all sense of time. She didn’t even know what day it was. How many days had she been confined, tormented, there? How long had it been since she had seen Penelope, her roommate? It seemed like months, though she was sure it had only been days. As her star-spangled formed floated high above the traffic moving to and from Maryland on I-95, she searched out the obscure farm road that led to the estate.
Inevitably, it was there, there behind the line of trees that Kane had told her marked the turn. Her lithe form dropped lower, carried on the air currents, and finally her boots came to rest on the soft grass next to the dirt path that led to Liddy’s hideout. Standing tall, the Amazon took a few deep breaths, bringing her body, and her power, under control
Kane’s description of Liddy’s plan meant that there was little time to spare. The sun was still high in the sky; so waiting for the cover of darkness was not an option. Wonder Woman had to get to the house as quickly as possible. Audra may already be undergoing the procedure to implant the reborn Hitler within her. While it may not be torture, or even painful, to do so, the procedure had to be stopped.
Kane had told her that the house had no basement and that the first floor was not used at all—mostly storage rooms and a library. That left the second and third floors. Wonder Woman considered that Liddy probably would have his lab at the safest part of the house, in the middle of the third floor, in the interior, if possible. She noticed that though the first and second floor windows were barred, the third floor was not. Perhaps it might be possible to enter at the end of the building.
The Amazon Champion let herself into the house through a window on the east side of the house, away from the sun. It appeared to be a bedroom. She moved through the shadows toward the door. The Champion of the Amazons gingerly opened it and peered into the hallway.
There was no one in sight. From her vantage point at the end of the hall, she could see the stairwell leading to the second floor. There were only shadows reaching up from that level.
Her powerful body slid through the door and into the hall. The carpeting was thick, plush. Wonder Woman moved quickly, knowing that there was little likelihood of a squeaking floorboard to give her away. She used that speed to swiftly check the doors along the passageway. Only the door to a single interior room was locked, she discovered.
Of course, she thought. They would be waiting for her.
She was right.
Inside the room, Liddy, Valdez, Jonas, and two others waited. And strapped to a table was the naked, blonde form of Audra LeVelle. Audra’s narrow ankles were strapped into stirrups so that her spread thighs stretched upward from her hips and her knees were bent. Exposed and vulnerable, dried trails of tears were visible on the side of her face. But her cries were muffled by the purple gag that secured the ball of cloth in her mouth. Her wrists were also strapped to the table on which she lay, near the sides of her head. The leather of the examination table squealed softly as her toned body squirmed.
But none of the men watched the erotic movements of her petite, flawless body. They all stared at the door, and, more specifically, at the doorknob, which they now saw begin to turn, first one way, then the other. Wonder Woman was in the house. She was at the door. They knew how to defeat her. Two among their number had done so twice. But in each case, she had been chained, her strength taken from her. Would they be able to do so again, when she was at her full power? They also knew of the drug that slumbered in her system, awaiting the adrenaline that would give them the advantage they needed.
Wonder Woman knew what was on the other side of the door. She also knew that going through that door was the only way to rescue Audra. She focused into the center of her being, slowly drawing deep breaths, her eyes closed, determined that her mind remain in control of her physical being. If she lost control, she knew that she would again fall into the hands of her enemies.
Grasping the doorknob, she pushed hard, shattering the lock and powering through the doorway into the darkness on the other side.
Four of the men stood about twenty feet inside the door, directly in front of the Amazon Champion, bathed in a pool of bright light. The fifth was next to the examination table where the struggling, moaning figure of Audra LeVelle was secured.
‘Welcome, Wonder Woman,’ George said, cheerfully, as she entered and got her bearings. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’ Audra and the single man in white were behind and to the right of the large group of men. She stood in the small rectangle of light at the doorway, gauging the situation. There was darkness between the light that surrounded her and the pool of bright light that wrapped around the figures in the center of the room.
‘Then you know that I’ve come for her,’ the Princess said, her head nodding toward the captive girl strapped to the table.
‘Ohh, I can’t allow that. Not yet,’ the bald mustachioed figure replied, the ceiling lights reflecting off his polished dome.
‘I know what you’re intending to do. How can you, a citizen of the United States, a public official sworn to protect our freedoms, want to bring back that—monster?’ Wonder Woman asked. Her voice remained even, almost calm.
Liddy smiled. ‘Because he was the greatest figure of my lifetime. He wanted to elevate the human race to its full potential. That too is my goal.’ He paused, then continued, ‘Is it not also yours? Isn’t it what the Amazon race is dedicated to?’
The slandering of her race struck the Princess like a blow across her face. She caught her breath and looked briefly to the floor. In that instant, Liddy cast his eyes toward Valdez, who moved a step closer to the Amazon. Liddy smiled to himself.
The beautiful Amazon regained her composure almost immediately. ‘The Amazons seek the fulfillment of the human race through virtuous means,’ she replied. ‘And I intend to prevent you from achieving your goal.’ She looked at Audra, lying still on the leather examination table. Next to her, a dark man in a white lab coat seemed frightened.
It took mere seconds for the superheroine to reach the table and release her friend as though the bonds that held her were paper. As she helped the girl up, Audra removed the purple gag. Wonder Woman’s warning stare was sufficient to keep Dr. Ganguly at bay. The flawless blonde’s lissome body twisted out of the stirrups and sat on the edge of the table. Wonder Woman helped her step to the floor and, eyeing the men, led her to the door that now hung off its hinges. She looked out into the hall and saw that it was bare. She looked at the man who was nearest her. ‘Might she borrow your coat?’ the Amazon asked, the politeness dripping with sarcasm. He was, like the others, very large, and as he handed over the blue blazer, Wonder Woman knew it would amply cover the petite form of the young woman she had rescued.
She smiled at Audra as she gently pushed her into the hallway. ‘Go now,’ she whispered. The blonde’s tear-stained eyes looked back in fear. ‘Go,’ she said again.
As Audra escaped down the hall, throwing on the jacket that would reach to her thighs, the Amazon Princess turned to the men in the room. Just as she did so, the man whose jacket now covered the little blonde one leapt across the darkness at the heroine. Catching him in mid-flight, Wonder Woman casually tossed him against the wall on the other side of the open door. The crash of his big body startled Audra as she made her way downstairs. Fleeing down the steps as quickly as she could, and gazing after her looking for pursuit, she didn’t notice as the front door eased slowly open.
The man was knocked out, but was otherwise uninjured. Liddy was concerned. The odds had been reduced to no purpose. It would be difficult enough to take the Amazon; but now that one of his fool henchmen had tried to act too soon, he had made it more difficult for all of them.
Liddy knew he had to agitate the heroine, if conquest and capture were even possible. He had made a start with his reference to Hitler’s goals. He knew Wonder Woman’s weak point, but whether he had enough time to exploit it was not certain. He only needed a little break. Dr. Ganguly’s chloroform would take care of the rest.
End of Chapter Five
Comments, questions, suggestions welcome:: contact the author atmarat1793@earthlink.net